Chapter Twenty-Four: The Grand High Academy of Hyrule

…

The interview with Inspector Keporra and Sergeant Harlow ultimately proved fruitless. Link and Navi both knew Keporra enough to believe that he had not noticed anything suspicious nor was he likely involved in the theft of Yoanna Merrill's organs. They also had a passing familiarity with Sergeant Harlow since he was one of about a dozen officers working with Graves. Even if they had not, between time spent transporting Yoanna's body and the greater likelihood that Keporra might have done something, they only asked him a few questions about the scene when he appeared and if he had noticed anything wrong with the body before dismissing him. Needless to say, Link's mood did not improve, spending the rest of the afternoon moping at DI Rusk's desk (Rusk having been occupied all day pursuing a stolen wagon after its original owner was shot dead on the street).

The following day, without an assignment after roll call, Navi proposed that they follow up on interviews to see if they had missed anything. Their first stop was Home Oven to speak to Mr. Bradley again. He confirmed that Yoanna had been in the bakery on the day of her death and that she had bought a pastry. However, his response to how she paid was a little vague. He explained that she would either pay with a yellow Rupee, which he would often make change for, or she would have the exact amount with her. He could not remember which method she had used that day. When asked whether she had ever paid with more than a yellow Rupee, he pointed out that he normally could not make change for anything larger than a red Rupee until later in the day. Yoanna had been aware of this and only ever used smaller denominations at the bakery.

Their next stop was Madame Blue's Salon. There, Link and Navi asked about Yoanna's appointment. Madame Blue explained (while dangerously waving her scissors around a worried customer's head) that the appointment was thirty-five Rupees and Yoanna often paid with a red Rupee along with smaller denominations. Madame Blue had seen that Yoanna would turn her pockets out, ostensibly to ensure that she had used all of the money she had been carrying. Yoanna had never just paid for the appointment, often giving Madame Blue up to ten Rupees as a tip. Link found that Wheatland was likely right, that the money Yoanna had been carrying that day had probably fallen out of her pocket when she was shot. Still, he thought it was odd that neither of her parents had recalled giving her the money that morning.

They made their last visit to Justine at the coroner's office. There, she explained that she had found a handful of cases of organ theft only a few years ago. However, the thefts in question had been one, perhaps two organs in a single murder. These thefts had been an attempt by a criminal group to save the life of a fellow suffering from organ failure. The thefts had been tragic, as no group actually had access to appropriate medical knowledge or tools to perform the surgery properly; the "doctors" attempting these backroom transplant procedures were mainly failed students from the Hyrulia Medical College if not a mere cohort with a basic understanding of how the human body worked. This resulted in an additional victim when the intended recipient of the transplant inevitably died from the botched procedure. The thefts themselves had been incredibly sloppy even if they had been performed by said doctor, the evidence obvious once the victims were recovered. Unfortunately, all this meant was that organ theft was rare rather than unknown and nothing matched the scale of Yoanna Merrill's incident. Justine also confirmed that Yoanna Merrill did not have any other property besides her clothes, her ring, and her necklace. Her clothes had been burned as per procedure; her effects had been sent to Watch Headquarters to wait for release.

The next day saw no new cases during roll call. Still, Link envied the other detectives being busy and out of the office. His discussion with Navi mainly reiterated that, without evidence, they could not even rule whether Yoanna Merrill's death was a murder or an arranged suicide. Navi collected all of the forms related to the case into a folder and, after labeling it with the case information, placed the folder in a file drawer on her desk. Link passed the day aimlessly wandering the east wing of the headquarters while Navi followed up on paperwork relating to both Yoanna's case as well as cases she had been working with the other detectives.

Their next case came mid-morning the next day. Wheatland dispatched them to an accident on the south side of the Central District. A young man had been crushed by a load of bricks falling from an apartment building under construction. Their presence was mostly a formality; the work crew had already identified the man responsible for securing the load, and he was arrested. Link and Navi oversaw the body until Graves appeared to take the body to the coroner's office. Navi explained that they both would be writing up reports of witness statements and physical evidence so that the Royal prosecutors could begin criminal proceedings against the man they had arrested. Link only heard part of her explanation, having been greatly nauseated by what a plummeting load of bricks could do to a human body. However, the work helped him relax and took his mind off Merrill's case. He was not even bothered by Navi telling him that he needed to rewrite his report to take out the unnecessarily gory details he had included, as the Royal prosecutors could be even more squeamish than him.

The day following that was a day off for Link, which granted him the opportunity to rent a taxi and retrieve his belongings from his former apartment in the Castlefoot District and take them to his new apartment. He busied himself arranging the apartment with his meager collection of belongings: the cot he had swiped from the district office in the Ice District, a small chest with a flat lid that made it easy to use as a bedside table for his alarm clock while storing his clothes, a stool so he could sit at the chest in some semblance of eating dinner, a few law books and published cases, a spare pair of boots, his duffel bag which he used to keep track of writing supplies, and a spare wallet he kept some of his savings in. He contemplated going to the Central Library of Hyrulia (a location he had not had the opportunity to visit yet), but he ultimately decided to relax. Well, he decided to go over the facts of Merrill's case, jotting things down in a notebook so that his thoughts were right in front of him. It was what usually passed for relaxation as far as Link was concerned. It still bothered him, but he had to admit that he was working against a solution rate of only twenty percent, which meant that he was lucky to solve more than one case for every five that he was involved with.

Roll call the next morning brought only one case during the shift change, which was handed to DS Crosswind. Link took the opportunity to glance through some of the cold cases Wheatland handed him, mainly so that he could familiarize himself with the kinds of cases that slipped through Homicide's fingers. He could understand Wheatland's pessimism; in a big city, evidence tended to dry up quickly.

He stole out for lunch. When he got back, he was announced by Wheatland bellowing, "There he is!"

Link had been in the middle of taking a bite out of a sandwich. He froze in the doorway with the sandwich still between his teeth, a bewildered expression in his eyes. He slowly let the sandwich out of his mouth, his bite only half-finished, and asked Wheatland, "Something wrong, sir?"

Navi, already standing next to her desk, pulled on her jacket. "We have another case," she told him. "Shooting at the Grand High Academy of Hyrule."

Link blinked in surprise. "The academy of snobs, snots, and snoots?" he asked.

"The very same," Wheatland replied with a nod. Then he pointed a finger at Link. "But you need to make sure you keep that kind of comment in check, Constable. Criminal activity at the G.H.A. is incredibly sensitive, and the staff are more likely to do things to protect the school's reputation than aid in the investigation."

"What do we know so far, sir?" Link asked before taking another bite of his sandwich.

"The victim's name is Fiametta Hremorson, age seventeen," Wheatland said, reading from a note in his hand. "She was shot in the middle of the campus about two hours ago."

Link quickly swallowed. "Two hours ago?" he croaked. "In broad daylight?!"

"Even more outrageous, she was shot near the Fountain of Nayru," Wheatland continued. "Large spans of open space, covered with students and staff all day… and just about as tricky to find witnesses in as any city street. This won't be an easy one."

"Easy or not, sir," Navi said as she stepped beside him, "we'll do our jobs to the best of our abilities."

"I don't expect less of you," Wheatland said. "Your ride is already waiting."

Link scarfed down his sandwich in the short hallway before they reached the main lobby, knowing well that food often did not survive the onslaught when one was trying to eat on the run. When they were outside, Link was delighted to see that Constable White had been assigned to them once again. They climbed into the carriage, and Link told her to take them to the academy.

The Grand High Academy of Hyrule was a large campus, about four city blocks' worth of land, on the border between the Telma and Autumn Districts. As the Autumn District was another location heavily populated by the nobility, the academy itself reflected the wealth of its neighbors in buildings of white marble and rich, intricate design. The main building itself almost appeared to imitate Hyrule Castle with a central tower under a sharp roof and smaller battlements on the ends of both wings. The courtyard before it sported numerous flowerbeds and benches all arranged with the central focus being a large fountain. The Fountain of Nayru was mostly a stack of differently-sized bowls capped by a trio of nozzles spraying into the air, nothing like the statue of the Goddess herself that Link had in mind. The atmosphere around the courtyard was bleak. Link could imagine that, at any other time, students of noble birth would be crisscrossing the courtyard. Today, though, the students were few, and officers of the Watch crawled about instead.

A small cluster of Watch officers blocked off part of the fountain. One of the on-scene officers escorted Navi and Link to this group. Once they were close enough, their escort spoke up, "Hey, Inspector. Homicide's here."

A middle-aged officer with a clean-shaven head looked up. "Welcome to Grand High, detectives," he said with a graveled voice.

Navi and Link glanced down at the sheet-covered body behind his feet. "What do we have?" Navi asked him.

The inspector sighed and stepped around the body so he could pull the sheet away. "Single bullet wound on the right side," he said as he drew the sheet back. "Witnesses didn't see a shooter." He gave one shoulder a shrug. "Y'know, about as you'd expect."

They looked down at a young woman sporting long, black hair splayed out over the concrete terrace. Her skin was slightly tanned, and her eyes were dark grey. She wore a red blouse underneath a shawl covered in silver sequins and a pair of white slacks that reached just under her knees. The inspector reached one hand out and pulled back part of her shawl to reveal a bullet hole burned into her blouse over her right breast.

"Who identified her?" Navi asked.

"Her friends," the inspector replied. "By their accounts, she was surrounded by them when they heard the shot. I would have to say that her luck ran out." He pointed to one of the smaller buildings on the opposite side of the fountain. "I assigned a few officers to take their statements."

"And you said no one saw a shooter?" Navi asked.

The inspector shook his head. "It sounds like no one really knew there had been a gunshot until Miss Hremorson fell to the ground. The eyewitnesses said they heard what sounded like a snap or a pop in the distance, but they didn't run until she dropped. Even then, her friends had to explicitly say she had been shot before everyone panicked."

"Did anyone say where they thought they heard the shot, sir?" Link asked.

The inspector gave Link a confused look. Then he told Navi as he pointed in the same direction as before, "Some of the people in that building reported a loud crack; the teachers locked the classroom doors and told them to hide under their desks. People outside that building reported the same thing and fled into other buildings nearby. My officers cleared the building before we called Homicide."

Link had backed up a few paces to look at the building in the distance. It was not as tall as the surrounding buildings, only two stories, and Link noticed that the roof appeared to be flat from this distance. So, he asked, "What's that building used for?" Navi turned to see what he was doing.

"Classrooms, mostly," the inspector said. "A small food stand, too."

"Roof access?" Link asked.

The inspector nodded. "It's undoubtedly where our shooter was at. It was probably a long gun; that's quite a distance to cover."

Link glanced between Miss Hremorson, the fountain, and the building. "Sir, was this body moved after she was shot?"

The inspector shook his head and indicated the ground around them. "No drag marks, no smears of blood."

"You mean she was shot through the fountain?" Link asked.

The inspector pointed at the tiers on the fountain and said, "There's plenty of room to shoot through it. We're trying to see if the fountain can be turned off so we can see if there was any ricochet."

"Does the academy have a gun club?" Navi asked.

"That was our first thought," the inspector told her. "I have a couple of my men checking with the club's advisor and going through the inventory. They've been at it for a while, so I imagine they'll be done soon."

"Anyone look at the roof yet?" Link asked.

"I haven't sent anyone there yet," he admitted to Link. "Even then, I don't expect much."

"Detective Sergeant?" Link asked.

"You may go examine the scene, Constable," Navi said with an exasperated tone. "Don't take too long; we need to review witness testimony as soon as possible."

"Got it, ma'am," Link replied.

Link jogged across the courtyard toward the building, exchanging a quick wave with other Watch officers who appeared to be running errands back and forth (likely reporting back to the inspector). The front doors of the building were flanked by a pair of constables who gave Link little more than a nod as he stepped through. Inside, more of the district's Watch officers were escorting students back and forth; Link recalled that an event such as this often entailed that the crime scene itself, after being cleared, could serve as an interview location when there were too many people to take to the district office. It was something that Link had never had the opportunity to do, being mostly street patrol and more likely to be assigned the grunt duty of watching an exit rather than interviewing witnesses. It suited him fine; the witness count appeared especially high in this event, and Link was glad that the officers on-scene, most likely sergeants, were taking care of what was sure to be much of the same story multiplied by a few scores. He stopped one constable to ask for directions to the nearest stairwell.

Once on the roof, he stepped to the edge of a short wall that encircled the top of the building. He glanced out at the other buildings on the campus, curious as to why this building was the only one with such a roof while the other roofs were gabled. The answer lay in one corner of the roof itself: an alidade and a text book. He approached it to glance at the book's cover and discovered a manual for surveying land. He crouched and gingerly lifted the alidade to ascertain its use. The battered instrument looked to have been neglected for a significant length of time, its vanes bent out of shape and the bar itself looking to have been warped by exposure to the elements. No one would have been using this recently. A tap against the cover of the textbook revealed that its pages were stuck together, making the whole text a brick of paper.

He looked up and out at the rest of the campus. Then, he moved to the wall over the front entrance so that he had a clear view of the fountain. He stepped far enough to see the white sheet on the ground in the distance. He crouched and moved backward a bit to see if it was possible to find a good shooting angle through the fountain. In spite of the inspector's observations, the second tier of the fountain made sighting a standing person difficult. However, because of the tier's shape, once Link had moved to the corner opposite of the neglected tools, lining up such a shot was much easier. It made him think that someone had been specifically aiming a shot through the fountain.

Then he smelled it. He had not been expecting it, but he could detect the scent of gunpowder near where he stood. He took note of the gray paving bricks that capped the short wall in front of him. The bricks were porous, and he saw that the brick in front of him held a black substance just below the surface. He used a hand to wipe across one corner of the brick, but he found that nothing stuck to his palm. So, he used a fingernail to scratch the same corner and examined it. That substance had caught on the end of his fingernail, and he gave it a quick sniff. Gunpowder, just as he had thought.

If the shooter had used a long gun as the inspector suspected (and Link concurred since a pistol or revolver would have difficulty making the same distance with lethal results), it stood to reason that there should not have been gunpowder on this brick. Anyone intentionally shooting from the rooftop would either be standing or bracing the firearm on the paver. If standing, the gunpowder would have more likely been blown over the side. In a bracing position, any gunpowder would be scanter and partially obscured by the shooter's arms resting on the brick. The whole brick had been covered in gunpowder while the bricks on either side also had a partial dousing. It stood to reason that it was because the end of the barrel had been braced on the stone or even behind it so that the long gun would not be so easily noticed by a person who just happened to look up. Even then, there was too little gunpowder remaining. Link, still crouched, placed a hand on the coal tar that comprised the surface of the roof at his feet. A quick look at his hand revealed a black substance at his feet, and a brief smell confirmed more gunpowder. He suspected that the shooter may have wiped the surface gunpowder off the bricks but did not think much of brushing it over the side rather than down at their own feet.

He did not like the implications, but he had the feeling that this was the work of another professional killer. It unnerved him that this felt similar to Yoanna Merrill's murder, but he forced himself to set aside the connection for the present. Still, this was looking far from an accidental shooting. He looked over the side to see Navi and the inspector approaching the building. So, he dusted off his hand and left.

He found his way to the first floor again and discovered the inspector loitering in the doorway of one of the classrooms. "Excuse me, sir," Link said, angling his shoulders as he tried to enter.

"Oh, sure, Constable," the inspector said, leaning backward to allow Link through.

"… were so close that it could have just as easily been one of them dead," a sergeant was saying as Link entered. Inside, a group of five sergeants were seated at the classroom desks with notepads in their hands while Navi stood behind the lectern at the front of the room, her own hands poised to jot notes down. "Two of them, uh… Priscilla Bolton and Jessica Affini, claim they were standing in front of her and could have easily been shot."

"Is there any indication that the whole group could have been the target?" Navi asked. "Is there someone that holds enmity toward this particular group?"

The sergeant who had just been speaking shrugged one shoulder and replied, "Well, none of them had any names that stuck out. Perhaps one or two mentioned the name Leonard Bantson, but it doesn't appear that he has been attending the school lately."

"That doesn't necessitate that he hadn't been here," Navi pointed out. "It just means that no one has seen him."

"Detective, if I may?" a female sergeant spoke up, one hand raised. Navi nodded at her. "You have to realize, these are teenage Hylian girls. Their capacity to make enemies of others is astounding, and it's not very likely they're going to remember every one of them. Being in a school for nobility just increases the likelihood that if another girl isn't a friend, she's an enemy."

"Maybe," the first sergeant said, "but do teenage girls usually go around shooting one another?"

"That kinda depends on how good they are with a gun," Link spoke up.

Navi glanced over at him, unaware that he had entered. "Find something, Constable Fieldview?" she asked.

"Yeah, uh…" Link stepped forward and used a hand to beckon the inspector inside. "Might wanna shut the door, sir." The inspector gave Link a confused look before glancing up at Navi. Navi herself looked a little perplexed, but she gave the inspector a quick nod. The inspector pulled the door shut behind him.

"What did you find?" Navi asked.

"Well, the inspector was probably right about the shooter using a long gun to do this," Link said. "Did any of the witnesses notice a gun barrel protruding from the top of the roof?"

"I actually had two students and a teacher standing at the front of the building that just happened to be looking up toward the roof," one sergeant spoke up. "They didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, but they said they heard the shot, looked back up, and then ran for it. The teacher said he thought he had seen a bit of smoke in the air, but nothing else."

Link nodded. "I suspected as much," he said.

"You did?" Navi asked.

"I found gunpowder on the edge of the roof," Link continued. "It was embedded in the bricks, so there was a lot of it comin' out of that gun. It seems the only way it got there would've been if the muzzle itself was pulled back far enough that end of the barrel was behind the brick."

"That'd be a hard position to shoot from," one of the other sergeants said. He positioned himself as if holding a long gun, although he looked quite awkward doing so since he was sitting in a chair with a desk in front of him. "To keep a long gun steady without being seen from over the side, he'd have to be sitting back flat on his butt."

"Not necessarily," Link said. "From a squat position to keep cover, the shooter probably just needed to set the end of the barrel on the short wall surrounding the roof. It'd be close to shootin' the brick itself, but that clearly wasn't a problem." He looked at Navi. "One other thing: the shooter tried to wipe away the gunpowder."

The room fell eerily silent. Link glanced over his shoulder to see that the inspector, having crossed his arms after shutting the door, was slowly lowering his arms to his side.

"Are you sure, Constable?" Navi asked, her hair having turned gray.

"I smelled it before I saw it," Link said. "If it hadn't been for the holes in the brick, he might've cleaned it up pretty well. There should have been a lot on top of the brick if he shot from seclusion; no other position would allow that amount."

Navi's hair darkened. "You mean we may actually be dealing with another professional shooter," she said.

Link nodded. "The question is how good he is," he continued. "Was he shooting at Hremerson or one of the other girls?"

Navi looked to the sergeant who had been talking when Link stepped inside. "Sergeant, make sure you have names and addresses for Hremorson's friends," she told him. "Go back and get them if you have to. We will run this as if Hremerson was the target, so I want you to ask if any of them know someone who had a grudge against her."

"Yes, Detective," the sergeant replied with a nod.

"Inspector," Navi then said, turning. "Unless anyone else has any vital information, you may release the other witnesses. I will need an address for House Hremorson so that we may inform the family."

"I'll get to it, Detective," the inspector said. He clapped his hands loudly, which prompted his sergeants to stand. "Gather your officers, let's get back to work."

Link stepped aside so that the rest of the Watch officers could file out of the room. Then he turned to Navi. "What about us?" he asked.

"Once we have a few suspects, we'll have them brought here for questioning," Navi said. "But you're certain it looked like a professional shooter?"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think it looked a lot like the Merrill shooting. Is this a frequent occurrence here in the city?"

Navi shook her head. "I've been with Homicide for less than a year, and this… doesn't seem to be the usual case. I'm not denying that nobles and their family members being murdered is unusual, but this sort of thing doesn't happen in public. Maybe a heated argument that ends with a gunshot. Maybe some fighting within a House; sometimes these noble children are just the worst. But arranging a public murder like this is… I don't think it's been done in a while."

"Wheatland had me look at some of the cold cases hangin' 'round the office. You're right; it doesn't look like this sorta thing's happened in a long time. I kinda wonder if something changed."

"Two cases of murder-for-hire don't constitute a trend, Constable," Navi said, her tone hardening. "For now, we will treat this like any other shooting."